Femke Broeders-Bol ( ; née Bol; born 23 February 2000) is a Dutch track and field athlete who has competed in sprinting, middle-distance running, and hurdling. Up to 2025, she specialized in the 400 metres hurdles, where she is the 2023 and 2025 World Champion, and in the 400 metres, where she is the 2024 World Indoor Champion and the short track world record holder. Since 2026, she has been specializing in the 800 metres. In the 4 × 400 metres relay, she is the 2023 World Champion and the 2024 World Indoor Champion with the Dutch women's team and the 2024 Olympic Champion with the Dutch mixed team.
Broeders-Bol holds the world record in the 400 metres short track with a time of 49.17 seconds set on 2 March 2024; the European record in the 400 metres hurdles with a time of 50.95 seconds set on 14 July 2024, making her the second-fastest woman of all time in the event; the European record in the mixed 4 × 400 metres relay with a time of 3:07.43 minutes set on 3 August 2024; and seven Dutch records in individual events and relays. She also has world-best performances in the 300 metres hurdles and 500 metres short track, and previously had a world best performance in the mixed 4 × 400 metres relay short track.
She is a four-time medalist (one gold) at the Olympic Games, an eleven-time medalist (five gold) at the World Championships (outdoor and indoor), a silver medalist at the World Relays, five-time champion in the Diamond League, a fourteen-time medalist (twelve gold) at the European Championships (outdoor and indoor), a gold medalist at the European Games, and an eleven-time medalist (five gold) at the Dutch Championships (outdoor and indoor).
Broeders-Bol's highest World Athletics Rankings were No. 1 in the 400 metres hurdles in 2021–2026, No. 3 in the 400 metres in 2023 and 2024, No. 3 in the 800 metres in 2026, and No. 2 of women overall in 2023, 2024, and 2026. She was European Athletics Rising Star of the Year in 2021 and European Athlete of the Year in 2022, 2023 and 2025.
Early life and background Femke Bol was born on 23 February 2000 in Amersfoort, Netherlands.Femke Broeders-Bol – Profile", World Athletics. Retrieved 18 July 2026.Liselot Bouman, "Lees hier alles over atlete Femke Bol " (in Dutch), Runners World, 9 August 2023. Retrieved 16 August 2023. She has an older brother. As a child, Bol practised judo for a year after she had broken her arm twice and her doctor had recommended the sport to help her learn how to fall.
Around 2008, she started practising athletics at a local club, following her brother who was already a member there."Beste vriendin Femke Bol was tot haar 14de sneller: 'Ineens liep ze voor me' " (in Dutch), RTL Nieuws, 5 August 2021. Retrieved 16 August 2023. In an interview, Bol said about the sport: "It was always a way to clear your mind and just have fun and not think too much about other things. That's still what I like so much about it." In 2014, she transferred to another local club, AV Altis, where her coach discovered her talent for longer sprints. She worked as a volunteer scanning tickets during the 2016 European Championships in Amsterdam."Bol had na Spelen mentale rust nodig: 'Niet meer als een gek doorgaan'" (in Dutch), NOS, 27 February 2025. Retrieved 27 February 2025.
Bol attended secondary school in Amersfoort, after which she became a student of communication sciences at Wageningen University. As of 2023, she was in a relationship with Belgian pole vaulter Ben Broeders. In 2024, the couple bought a house in Heelsum, Netherlands.Suzanne Huibers, "Heelsum krijgt er een beroemde inwoner bij: Femke Bol koopt er samen met haar vriend een huis" (in Dutch), De Gelderlander, 19 April 2024. Retrieved 22 October 2024. In 2025, the couple got engaged.Grace Goulding, "Off the track with Femke Bol: love, pressure, and life beyond the finish line", Olympics.com, 3 July 2025. Retrieved 5 July 2025. On 21 February 2026, the couple got married in Amersfoort.Minne Groenstegeen and Leon van Wijk, "Femke Bol in Amersfoort getrouwd met Belgische atleet Ben Broeders" (in Dutch), Algemeen Dagblad, 6 March 2026. Retrieved 19 March 2026.
During the 2023 European Indoor Championships in Istanbul, Turkey, she called on people to donate money for humanitarian aid to the victims of the 2023 Turkey–Syria earthquakes a month earlier."Bol en Klaver lopen ereronde in Istanbul met vlag voor Giro555" (in Dutch), RTL, 4 March 2023. Retrieved 3 March 2025."Help slachtoffers aardbeving" (in Dutch), Samenwerkende Hulporganisaties. Retrieved 3 March 2025. Since 2025, she has been an ambassador for Free a Girl, a non-profit organisation that is committed to rescuing girls from situations of sexual exploitation."Femke Bol" (in Dutch), Stichting Free a Girl. Retrieved 3 March 2025."Wie zijn we" (in Dutch), Stichting Free a Girl. Retrieved 3 March 2025. Bol wrote a Dutch children's book (2025) inspired by her own childhood and the proceeds will be donated to Free a Girl."Atlete Femke Bol brengt eerste kinderboek uit" (in Dutch), Nu.nl, 8 September 2025. Retrieved 19 November 2025."Topatlete Femke Bol (25) maakt prachtig gebaar voor stichting Yolanthe Cabau: 'Grijpt me zó aan'" (in Dutch), Sportnieuws.nl, 9 November 2025. Retrieved 19 November 2025.
In October 2025, she opened the Femke Bol Hal, an indoor sports facility in Amersfoort named after her.Wessel van Leeuwen & Emiel Versteeg, "Na een hele hoop titels heeft Femke Bol nu ook haar eigen sporthal: 'Bijzonder en een grote eer'" (in Dutch), RTV Utrecht, 16 October 2025. Retrieved 8 November 2025. In March 2026, a wax figure in her likeness was unveiled in Madame Tussauds Amsterdam."Broeders-Bol kent voorlopig haar plek op 800m: 'Hodgkinson paar maten te groot'" (in Dutch), NOS, 30 March 2026. Retrieved 31 March 2026.
Youth and junior career Bol focused on the 400 metres distance in 2015, at age 15, and started winning Dutch age-group competitions. She won five national youth titles in the 400 m (outdoor and indoor) between 2015 and 2017, and four junior titles in 2018 and 2019 (400 m outdoor, indoor, and hurdles). In 2016, she started training with coach Bram Peters at the athletics track of Ciko'66 in Arnhem, where her parents drove her almost daily.
At the international competitions, she progressed steadily. Competing against athletes up to two years her senior, Bol did not advance from the 400 m heats at the 2015 European Youth Olympic Festival in Tbilisi, Georgia. Two years later, the 17-year-old participated in the European Under-20 Championships held in Grosseto, Italy and reached the semi-finals of the event.
In 2019, her last year as a junior competitor, she claimed her first national title (indoor 400 m) in a senior competition. In June, in the third hurdles race of her life, Bol broke Dutch U20/U23 records and achieved World Championship qualifying standard when winning a meet in Geneva with a time of 55.94 s. In July, she won a gold medal in the 400 m hurdles at the European U20 Championships in Borås, Sweden. In September, she ran her first professional race at the Galà dei Castelli in Bellinzona, Switzerland. In October, at the Doha World Championships in Qatar, the 19-year-old reached the semi-finals with a new personal best of 55.32 s in the heats of the 400 m hurdles, becoming the second-fastest European U20 woman in history. She also helped her national women's team place seventh in the 4 × 400 m relay.
Since November 2019, she has been training at the Dutch National Sports Centre Papendal near Arnhem, coached by Switzerland's Laurent Meuwly and her previous coach Bram Peters as assistant coach.
Senior career 2020: First senior Dutch record and first senior successes
Bol was forced to train on gravel paths in the woods and on grass fields when COVID-19 quarantine measures were first enacted in March 2020. Despite this, she raced in Papendal in July and broke by almost a second the national 400 m hurdles record of 54.62 s set by Ester Goossens in 1998. First, running in the rain, she took almost a second off her 2019 best with a time of 54.47 s, which could not be ratified as only one other athlete competed. Two weeks later, she achieved 53.79 s, the fourth-fastest European under-23 time in history.
During this pandemic season, the Dutchwoman won all her following races over the barriers: two Diamond League events staged in 2020 as one-off exhibition competitions, and three Continental Tour events. First she stayed ahead of all her competitors in Székesfehérvár, Hungary on 19 August, to repeat this achievement four days later at the Stockholm Bauhaus-galan winning her first Diamond race. In September, she won in Ostrava (300 m hurdles), Bellinzona, and Rome. She reduced her open 400 metres pre-2020 best by 1.85 s down to 51.13 s.
2021: Tokyo Olympic bronze medalist Bol started her unbeaten indoor campaign on 30 January, beating her previous best in the 400 metres by more than 1.5 s to break a Dutch record in a time of 50.96 s at the Vienna Indoor Track & Field meet in Austria. The previous record was set a few minutes earlier by Lieke Klaver, who in turn broke Ester Goossens' mark which had stood at 51.82 s since 1998. Bol then won all her following seven races at the distance in four events, improving in every final. Competing in the World Indoor Tour, she powered to meet records in Metz (50.81 s) and Toruń (50.66 s), then clocked 50.64 s at the Dutch Indoor Championships, and finally lowered her record to 50.63 s when winning at the European Indoor Championships in Toruń, Poland. There she took her second gold medal anchoring the women's 4 × 400 m relay to a championship record. Her individual mark made her the fastest European woman since 2009.
The 21-year-old started her 2021 outdoor season by competing at the World Relays, before setting a 400 m national record of 50.56 s at the IFAM Meeting on 29 May in Oordegem. She then started improving her own Dutch hurdling record when winning Diamond League meetings, beginning with a time of 53.44 s on 10 June in Florence. At the time it was also European U23 record, breaking a 37-year-old mark. On 19 June, she returned to the 400 m flat event during the European Team Championships in Romania and bettered her record with a 50.37 s performance. On 1 July in Oslo, she lowered her hurdles record in a time of 53.33 s. She then took almost a second off with a Diamond League record of 52.37 s on 4 July in Stockholm, where she beat Shamier Little by 0.02 s. This race was only the second in history, after the 2017 USATF Championships, in which three women recorded times below 53 seconds as third-placed Anna Ryzhykova finished in 52.96 s. Bol, meanwhile, became the fourth fastest woman of all time with the sixth-fastest result ever, missing the European record by just 0.03 s. On 6 July, she won the event at the Continental Tour meet in Székesfehérvár with a time of 52.81 s, edging out Little in 52.85 s again. Having won the Diamond League race in Gateshead, England on 13 July, she extended her unbeaten streak in her specialist event to 12 races in total. It was her third consecutive victory over Little.